I suppose I should use the fact that I have cats to greater blogging opportunity.

For the first year together, Midnight and Stormy used to fight all of the time, so this picture of them together represents a sea change. Not that they don’t fight occasionally, or, truthfully, nearly daily, but they have learned to tolerate each other.

This spring, the local Hannaford supermarket had a contest to determine the best pet photos in a variety of categories. The Daughter decided to submit a couple of our felines, taken on The Wife’s iPad, then emailed to me so that I could print them out.

Frankly, I have no idea how many other participants, if any, there were, but the Daughter won with the picture of Stormy, shown above. She received various pet treats, food, cat litter and the like.

BTW, Stormy, who just turned two, has become much more affectionate to me, sitting on my lap – only when she wants to, because she IS a cat, after all – and rubbing her head on my feet.

I’ll admit I prefer this photo, if only because it’s SO goofy, rather like Midnight, who’s about a half a year older than Stormy. He has always been affectionate to me, but, for a time, it got to be too much.

Quite often, at 4 a.m., he’d come into our bedroom and start licking my arms, and chewing on the hair on the top of my head and even on my mustache. I would get up and usually write. Then I had to get him down from the file cabinet next to the office desk, lest he jump down on the laptop and accidentally screw up some settings; he’s done it before.

But then he started his routine at 3 a.m., and I can’t function on that little sleep. So I would get up, put him in the basement and go back to bed. This seems to have (mostly) broken him of this annoying habit.

For a time, we thought Midnight was becoming too aggressive towards some strangers – he utterly freaked out at the vet’s office – and wondered how we could even go on vacation for more than a day or two.

We got a new child watcher (FKA babysitter) named Maxine and he was very affectionate towards her. Now, SHE can come in, feed the cats, change the litter box, and give them some love.

The Wife has an iPad she got from work. But it is the Daughter who has really taken to it, playing music, making short videos, and taking pictures. All the photos in this post are hers.

Since I have the pics and I haven’t written about the beasts recently, here’s the update.

Midnight is my cat. This is not MY determination; it is his. He sleeps in our bed quite often, on my side. If I’m sitting, reading a book or watching TV, he’ll sit next to me, with one paw on my lap. I wonder if it’s the fact that we’re the two males in the household.

He tolerates the others in the family, and a few others, but he is wary of strangers. They certainly ought not try to pick him up, as he’s clawed a couple people already. Continue reading “Midnight and Stormy”